Art exhibition inspired by Putin Rides meme opens in Dundee

An art project inspired by internet memes has opened in Dundee, with the aim of exploring their political usage in the modern era.

One of the 'Putin Rides' memes featured in the new exhibition. Picture: Contributed

The exhibition, titled “PILproject 2.0: Russia. Be blinded by an inner light”, opens at the Centrespace Gallery this week and is organised by an artistic collective who share a fascination with the kind of humorous online images that are widely shared on social media networks.

The PILproject group took inspiration for the show from the ‘Putin Rides’ meme, which caused a political uproar in Russia in 2015.

It saw an offical picture of the Russian president riding a horse superimposed onto other pictures, with often surreal results.

The group travelled to Russia to research its internal politics and the country’s relationship with the internet.

PILproject member Alejandro Ball, a PhD student at the University of Dundee, said: “This exhibition will serve to present our research findings and will examine the effects of control and surveillance, and the dystopia of internet freedom.

“The Putin Rides meme pushed us to investigate the politics of Russia and the internet further, and how the implementation of the country’s recent internet content law had affected artists operating on the net.”

The exhibition is open until Saturday from 12-4.30pm.

The Centrespace Gallery is part of Duncan of Jordanstone art school’s visual research centre, located in Dundee Contemporary Arts.